The Audience (A Fable?)

The world is music -- the greatest composition, ever, penned by the Unseen Composer. The Composer has crafted the world out of four elements: rhythm, melody, timbre, and harmony. And when he raises His baton, the world shifts and changes around us, like sound waves washing over a concert audience. We watch; we listen.

But we hear things differently.

Some follow only the rhythm, because that can be done with no thought and with no work. A rhythm drives everyone's body. Rhythm, is easy. Rhythm, is powerful. Rhythm lives inside our chests and rings within our ears in deepest silence. Rhythm, is easy. Rhythm is powerful.

There are those who follow the melody, because it soars above the rest. It carries beauty. It is the sheen on the surface. It can be complex, but can only go so far. Alone, it shivers like a child without a coat.

Alone, it dies in the wind.

And there are those who know only timbre. They hear only sounds. One note can be the same as the next in an endless drone, but change the timbre, the color of the note, the texture of the note, the jacket it wears, and they are pleased and they are entertained by the costume alone.

But those who hear the harmonies -- they understand that which carries the melody; that which transforms the melody; that which melds the notes and the many timbres of the universal orchestra into a living spirit and cradles all into a magical union; that which threads around the rhythm and gives its primitive sincerity a complex grace. For without the harmonies, none of the rest can ever make complete sense and none of the rest can ever really be alive.

On those who know the tapestry of the harmonies, the Composer smiles; for, only they really hear His work and see its heart.